New action figures celebrate Star Trek’s biggest Sherlock Holmes connection.
Sherlock Holmes isn’t an intellectual property you might associate with toys. Books? Absolutely. Books are the medium in which the world’s first consulting detective made his mark. (Strictly speaking, though, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in the pages of a magazine, Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887). Puzzles? They make sense for Sherlock, too. Sherlock is celebrated for his keen powers of observation and reasoning. But toys? Specifically—action figures?
As it turns out, searching for Sherlock Holmes toys will lead you to action figures connected with the BBC series Sherlock, which ran sporadically from 2010 through 2017. But now, thanks to pop culture toy manufacturer Super7, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) is providing Sherlock Holmes with another entrée into the action figure scene.
TrekCore reported last week that Super7 has released four action figures from the second-season TNG episode “Elementary, Dear Data.” These figures depict Data dressed as Sherlock Holme, Geordi La Forge dressed as Dr. Watson, and Captain Picard and Worf dressed in Victorian garb.
Super7’s Star Trek Sherlock Holmes action figures look great
TNG fans will remember that “Elementary, Dear Data” marked the first of TNG’s two forays into the world of Sherlock Holmes. Geordi’s poorly worded request that the Enterprise computer create a holodeck villain “capable of defeating Data”—rather than capable of defeating Sherlock Holmes, whom Data was playing—caused it to create a Professor Moriarty (memorably played by Daniel Davis) who threatened not only Dr. Pulaski but also the ship.
Davis reprised the role of Professor Moriarty in the seventh-season TNG episode “Ship in a Bottle.”
The four figures from this episode make up Wave 3 of Super7’s line of “ReAction” Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures. Each 3.75” figure boasts impressive attention to detail, several points of articulation, and extremely faithful facial likenesses of the actors. The Super7 sculptors have captured Michael Dorn’s scowling Worf particularly well.
In addition, three of the figures come with accessories. Data has Sherlock Holmes’ signature meerschaum pipe, Geordi has the journal in which Dr. Watson recorded Sherlock’s cases for the reading public, and Captain Picard has an elegant cane.
Viewers of season three of Star Trek: Picard—or, for that matter, the season 3 trailer—will realize Super7 is demonstrating impeccable timing in its release of figures based on “Elementary, Dear Data.” Here’s hoping will get a Professor Moriarty action figure before too much longer!